(19-02-2017 06:05 PM)Dom Wrote: So, what caused you all to flee Amazon?

The moderation over there is exceptionally biased towards the theistic viewpoint, and oversight has increased *dramatically* in the last month, with many accounts of long-time egregious trolls being deleted, as well as several reasonable atheists. A very heavy moderator hand has emerged.

Simply challenging irrational beliefs is grounds for having posts deleted as "spiteful".

After one warning, the next offense results in an account being "raptured". (Mine was closed yesterday.)

I suspect that the fora over there are going to be eliminated entirely in the very near future, and moderators are ramping up banning activity for the smallest offense, in order to rationalize shutting the whole thing down.

IMDB closed their fora a couple of weeks ago, because it was a nest of toxic trolling.

(19-02-2017 04:31 PM)A. Secular Human Wrote: Hello everyone. I'm another in a long list of people formerly from the Amazon dot com fora. I hope to engage in some spirited discussions, and become re-acquainted with some old friends....er...the friends are not old...well, maybe they are...but the friendships are certainly old anyway.

I hope to make some new friends as well.

<raising glass of wine> Here's to old and new friends and spirited debate!

(19-02-2017 06:05 PM)Dom Wrote: So, what caused you all to flee Amazon?

The moderation over there is exceptionally biased towards the theistic viewpoint, and oversight has increased *dramatically* in the last month, with many accounts of long-time egregious trolls being deleted, as well as several reasonable atheists. A very heavy moderator hand has emerged.

Simply challenging irrational beliefs is grounds for having posts deleted as "spiteful".

After one warning, the next offense results in an account being "raptured". (Mine was closed yesterday.)

I suspect that the fora over there are going to be eliminated entirely in the very near future, and moderators are ramping up banning activity for the smallest offense, in order to rationalize shutting the whole thing down.

IMDB closed their fora a couple of weeks ago, because it was a nest of toxic trolling.

IMDB is an Amazon property.

I posted a few times over on Amazon. I contributed a few comments on the Shroud of Turin thread. It's been almost 2 years ago that I posted there and the damned thread is still going.

(21-02-2017 01:40 PM)A. Secular Human Wrote: The moderation over there is exceptionally biased towards the theistic viewpoint, and oversight has increased *dramatically* in the last month, with many accounts of long-time egregious trolls being deleted, as well as several reasonable atheists. A very heavy moderator hand has emerged.

Simply challenging irrational beliefs is grounds for having posts deleted as "spiteful".

After one warning, the next offense results in an account being "raptured". (Mine was closed yesterday.)

I suspect that the fora over there are going to be eliminated entirely in the very near future, and moderators are ramping up banning activity for the smallest offense, in order to rationalize shutting the whole thing down.

IMDB closed their fora a couple of weeks ago, because it was a nest of toxic trolling.

IMDB is an Amazon property.

I posted a few times over on Amazon. I contributed a few comments on the Shroud of Turin thread. It's been almost 2 years ago that I posted there and the damned thread is still going.

Anyway, welcome!

Shit there are still threads going here that started before I left 3 years ago.

(19-02-2017 06:05 PM)Dom Wrote: So, what caused you all to flee Amazon?

(19-02-2017 06:16 PM)Aliza Wrote: Welcome.

What's the Amazon forum (did you mean forum, not fora)? To me, Amazon is the site that sells me bird food, electronics and kitchen items. I wasn't aware of a forum by the same name.

Hi folks.

Amazon has had a number of "customer discussion forums" for a long time, but in the past few years they have been making them increasingly more difficult to locate. Most of the people currently in them have been there for a long time.

Amazon has long had an arbitrary and capricious policy as regards deleting posts, banning posters, and blocking accounts. It's quite common to have one of these happen for "violating the rules", however said rules are never stated other than in the vaguest terms. No amount of correspondence with Amazon could elicit further detail. When a poster was banned, all their posts, in all threads and fora, would be deleted -- making it difficult to follow discussions if you had been gone for a day or two.

We've seen the hand writing on the wall for a while, and started making contingency plans to find another home, should Amazon suddenly shut down the fora without warning -- which would be entirely consistent with Amazon's behavior to date. More recently, adding insult to injury, drones with sock-puppets who did nothing but spam across fora with the same inane repetition hundreds -- and more likely thousands of times -- were left to carry on as usual, while valued posters who had been initiating and contributing to substantive discussions for years, would sometimes disappear suddenly.

It was that last that finally convinced me that it was time to seek greener pastures. The Amazon fora are still there, but so is Usenet, so that's not saying much. I'll probably continue to haunt their emptying corridors for a while yet. But since a whole raft of my favorite posters just showed up over here, there probably isn't going to be much to hold me over there for much longer.

Amazon's loss -- I won't be making nearly as many impulse purchases now that I don't have an Amazon window open on my system all day.
Should save me a lot of cash; maybe I'll put it into real estate.

(19-02-2017 06:05 PM)Dom Wrote: So, what caused you all to flee Amazon?

(19-02-2017 06:16 PM)Aliza Wrote: Welcome.

What's the Amazon forum (did you mean forum, not fora)? To me, Amazon is the site that sells me bird food, electronics and kitchen items. I wasn't aware of a forum by the same name.

Hi folks.

Amazon has had a number of "customer discussion forums" for a long time, but in the past few years they have been making them increasingly more difficult to locate. Most of the people currently in them have been there for a long time.

Amazon has long had an arbitrary and capricious policy as regards deleting posts, banning posters, and blocking accounts. It's quite common to have one of these happen for "violating the rules", however said rules are never stated other than in the vaguest terms. No amount of correspondence with Amazon could elicit further detail. When a poster was banned, all their posts, in all threads and fora, would be deleted -- making it difficult to follow discussions if you had been gone for a day or two.

We've seen the hand writing on the wall for a while, and started making contingency plans to find another home, should Amazon suddenly shut down the fora without warning -- which would be entirely consistent with Amazon's behavior to date. More recently, adding insult to injury, drones with sock-puppets who did nothing but spam across fora with the same inane repetition hundreds -- and more likely thousands of times -- were left to carry on as usual, while valued posters who had been initiating and contributing to substantive discussions for years, would sometimes disappear suddenly.

It was that last that finally convinced me that it was time to seek greener pastures. The Amazon fora are still there, but so is Usenet, so that's not saying much. I'll probably continue to haunt their emptying corridors for a while yet. But since a whole raft of my favorite posters just showed up over here, there probably isn't going to be much to hold me over there for much longer.

Amazon's loss -- I won't be making nearly as many impulse purchases now that I don't have an Amazon window open on my system all day.
Should save me a lot of cash; maybe I'll put it into real estate.

Thanks for being a haven for a bunch of displaced unbelievers.

If some of the trolls follow you, it would be amusing. We have people here who make fine grist from them. I personally just occasionally look in to see how finely ground they get. Great fun!